This is a family friendly blog for those who love dolls and toys. The blog is a forum for all apsects of doll history, doll collecting, and doll making. It is the first step in creating a nonprofit doll center to educate the public about the historical role that dolls, the oldest human cultural artifact, play in the the lives of people all over the world. All excerpts are the author's intellectual property and may not be reproduced in any means withoutreceiving permission from the author.

My husband led me to a fantastic Victorian doll house yesterday. After we chatted with a great couple who built it, we came home with VanV...

Sand Baby Castaways

Courtesy, Glenda Rolle the Artist

PM Dolls

Leo Moss

German Dolls

Formerly, Aunt Len's.

Beecher Doll

Graces cover of Lenon Hoyte Auction, Aunt Len's

Foreign Dolls

Pryor Collection

Pryor Doll Collection

In Dec. 1959 Natl. Geographic

Great Book

Edward VI's Doll, 1540

Formerly, Helen Moe Doll Museum

Rare "frozen metal doll" Mannikin Pis

Courtesy, eBay Eilleen, Finder 27

Vintage Japanese Doll Joins our Museum Family

Courtesy, Southern Soldier Antiques

Rare Frozen Charlotte Type

A Pageant of Dolls

By Lesley Gordon, 1948

Hong Kong Lili

Barbie Stamp

An early Vintage Barbie

Bild Lili

Zinc Bodied Rohmer

Caused a suit between Mme. Rohmer and Mlle. Huret

Metal Dydee Baby

17th century Lead Dolls

England

Doll Shaped Mold

cf Dolls and Puppets by von Boehn

Metal Head

Probably Minerva

Black Metal Head

Russian Nesting Doll Charm

18 inch Metal Head

Mlle Bleuette

14th C Munich Clay Doll

Used as Bapitsmal Gifts

Halopeau artists rendering

Toy maker

Restored dolls

L to R: All vinyl mid-60s, Ragggedy Ann, handmade, new arms and clothes, Barbie Type as Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia. Black Felt Dress, white silk flowers and ribbons. She is in one piece, but with a swivel waist that does snap in two!

About Me

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I've loved this couple since the first time I saw them on 60 Minutes. Read on, and be inspired. Hoarders TV Show, Take That!!!
The Prom Queen of P.S. 1
Posted by Anna Altman
Dorothy and Herbert Vogel led the sort of life that sounds like a New York legend: two state employees, living on less than fifty thousand dollars a year, manage to amass a collection of more than four thousand works of contemporary art. It’s hard to believe such a feat would be economically possible, but the Vogels were early enthusiasts who collected what was at first unpopular—inaccessible minimalist and conceptual works—and would now be worth millions. Not everyone in their collection was widely known, but many were: Richard Tuttle, Sol LeWitt, Jeanne-Claude and Christo. The Vogels themselves were minor celebrities, known by art-world regulars around the city, and they were beloved: at a 1976 event to benefit P.S. 1, the founder, Alanna Heiss, threw a prom. There was a ballot for prom king and queen, and Herb and Dorothy won.
The story of the Vogels—the modest, unassuming, middle-class Vogels—and their collection took on mythic proportions. They were said to live in a one-bedroom apartment (true) that was rent-controlled (not true) and filled to the gills with paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ephemera (true). They stashed artworks by postwar luminaries in the oven (not true) and under the bed (true). Chuck Close said on film that every time he went to their house, there was more work crammed in (true), and owing to the stacks under the furniture “the bed just kept getting higher and higher” (not true). But it is true that Dorothy and Herb went to the National Gallery on their honeymoon, that they both took painting classes early in their relationship but gave that up in favor of collecting, and that they spent the fifty years of their marriage looking at, loving, and buying art.
The Vogels were the subject of a touching documentary, “Herb and Dorothy,” that was released in 2008. The film shows how utterly their marriage revolved around artists and gallery visits, until 1990, when the Vogels decided it was time to give their collection away to a stewarding institution; they chose the National Gallery. Then, with a small annuity from the National Gallery, they just went on collecting. By the time the film’s director, Megumi Sasaki, began filming, the Vogels were a favorite story among the gossiping crowds at art galleries. Lucio Pozzi recalled on camera how a friend had pointed to the Vogels at an opening and said, in a whisper, “You see those two people? You would never guess it, but they are two of the biggest collectors of new art in New York.”
But Sasaki captures something much more fundamental than a charming story. As art lovers, the Vogels were unstoppable: they were indefatigable viewers and collectors and observers. Dorothy’s upbeat chatter balanced Herb’s penetrating gaze, and both were precise and specific in their assessments. At the opening of their friend Robert Mangold’s exhibition at Pace Wildenstein, in 2007, Dorothy commented that the new work presented a departure from his usual palette, but his identity had remained the same. Later, in a shot of the couple visiting the National Gallery to discuss their collection, Herb immediately walks over to a small crushed-car sculpture by John Chamberlain, the first work that the Vogels acquired together, and points out that the curators have it upside down.
Last Tuesday, a second documentary, entitled “Herb and Dorothy 50x50,” had its world première at the Whitney Museum. The film, also by Sasaki, continues where the first one left off, but much has changed in the Vogels’ lives. Their art has been transferred to the National Gallery, and from there divided into packages of fifty artworks, to be distributed to fifty museums in each of the fifty states. Herb and Dorothy are no longer collecting, and are now busy participating in each museum’s inaugural exhibition of the collection.
What’s most striking about the second installment of the documentary, though, is the Vogels’ subdued mood. The film begins in 2008, when Herb is eighty-five years old. He can still walk, but his energy is diminished, so Dorothy pushes him in a wheelchair, chattering to him in her typically cheerful way. For most of the film, Herb is silent, his only response a quick handshake for those who approach him. At one point, a reporter asks him how it feels to see his collection hung in the Delaware Art Museum. “It’s a wonderful feeling,” he responds, and that’s it. Dorothy tells the reporter she should be proud; Herb hardly says much of anything anymore.
Herb passed away in July, 2012, at the age of eighty-nine. For the last years of his life, Herb was sick and confined to a wheelchair; his memory was fading. Toward the end of the second film, Herb reflects on their legacy: “What we did then is now art history,” he says. Dorothy also speaks in an elegiac tone: “We had a good time, and our lives have completely changed,” she says. “My main job now is taking care of him.” At the end of the film, after Herb’s death, Dorothy declares that her days of collecting are over. Last week, Dorothy attended the screening alone, and when an audience member asked her what artwork she missed most, she responded, “I just really miss Herbie.”
A few days later, over lunch in the MOMA café, Dorothy reiterated that she wasn’t collecting anymore. “It was something we did together, and I don’t want to water it down by continuing on without him.” She gave plenty of reasons why: she had spent years caring for Herb when he was too ill to see art, and she had lost her eye for it; she was interested in other things now, like theatre matinées and Maeve Binchy and redecorating her apartment. She was travelling, too: to Los Angeles, to see her collection installed at L.A. MOCA; to Japan, for screenings of the second film. She was reluctant to dwell on the past, and questions about any specific artworks in the collection drew clipped responses. There were no standout pieces; nothing held particular sentimental value. (The Vogels didn’t have any children, and Dorothy allowed that they loved all of their artworks equally, “as if they were children.”) They never considered selling, and they never considered ceasing to collect. That was their life together, and Dorothy wasn’t interested in reëvaluating it. In fact, she seemed determined to draw a line below it.
The Vogels’ story is unusual simply for its economics—a librarian and a postal clerk rub shoulders with the moneyed, the luxurious, and the quirky—but it’s the portrait of their marriage in Sasaki’s films that is most enduring. The collection was their life’s work, and they spent the last years of their marriage, and Herb’s life, ensuring that it was transferred to institutions that could care for it in perpetuity. Herb and Dorothy had gone to galleries together every Saturday until Herb was too sick to continue. Now, “When Saturday comes, it’s pretty lonely,” Dorothy admitted.
I had asked Dorothy if she would see an exhibition with me, and initially she declined. The Armory Fair is too exhausting; she doesn’t keep up with what is going on in Chelsea; the artists she had been friends with have mostly moved away; and, besides, Herb was the one who really knew about art. But she agreed to meet me at MOMA because she’s a member there, and because the “Inventing Abstraction” show appealed to her. She had already seen the exhibition once, but after lunch she agreed to take another quick spin through.
Dorothy led me straight to works by Robert and Sonia Delaunay. She loved these, she said; the colors appealed to her, and I agreed. I remarked that one reminded me of Kandinsky, and asked if she liked his work. She said that she did, and recalled that, when she was single and working at the Brooklyn Public Library, she borrowed a reproduction of a Kandinsky painting for her home. Herb had been impressed by it during their courtship. (Less so by her print of a Chagall painting, she said.) She also liked the Futurists, Giacomo Balla in particular, but it was Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists that she gravitated toward. These, she said, were the painters that “influenced me most strongly” when she was painting. In fact, that was more her style than Herb’s; she was interested in more “hard edge” work, while he was more “flamboyant.” There had been a division of labor between them: she would pick out the works they purchased from Sol LeWitt, known for his minimalist wall drawings, and he would choose among Lynda Benglis’s organic, expressive pieces.
Past the Suprematists were works by Mondrian and the De Stijl group. Among them were paintings and sculptures by a Belgian named Georges Vantongerloo, whose work she hadn’t noticed during her first visit. One sculpture in particular appealed: it was a diminutive wooden triptych, with side panels painted in an irregular grid of white and colored rectangles. The central panel was a three-dimensional wood relief, left unpainted, that echoed the pattern of the squares on either side. If Mondrian had made a Tangram puzzle, it would look something like this. It was one of those works in an exhibition that are entirely unanticipated, but end up being the most memorable and beloved. Dorothy soon told me she was feeling tired, and so we walked toward the exit. She was glad we had come: “It’s good to have somewhere to go, to get out of the house.”
Photograph by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times/Redux
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/03/the-prom-queen-of-ps-1.html?printable=true&currentPage=all#ixzz2OfaWP9tk

Thursday, March 21, 2013

‎No Author‎
‎WOMAN'S DAY DICTIONARY OF DOLLS‎
‎U. S. A.: Fawcett. VG. 1965. Magazine. The magazine's front cover is missing but the article with which we are concerned is in almost as new condition. ; This is a twelve-page article in the January 1965 issue of WOMAN'S DAY. ANTIQUES. There are 106 full-color 2-3/8 x 2-15/16" photos each with an identifying caption plus short articles on the different types of dolls: French fashion dolls Parian dolls Papier Mache dolls Composition dolls Wax dolls China dolls Bisque dolls Speciality dolls Geographic dolls and Wooden dolls. All of the dolls illustrated are from the private collection of Doris Hupp. In addition the magazine contains a 1-1/8 page article THE BUSY HAPPY LIFE OF A DOLL COLLECTOR by Hilda Cole Espy which contains four b/w photos. . Fawcett unknown‎
Biblio.com
VELMA CLINTON BOOKS
United States
[Books from VELMA CLINTON BOOKS]
€11.47 Buy
‎NO AUTHOR‎
‎Woman's Day Dictionary of Dolls‎
‎U. S. A.: Fawcett, 1965. Magazine. The magazine's front cover is missing but the article with which we are concerned is in almost as new condition. ; This is a twelve-page article in the January, 1965 issue of WOMAN'S DAY. ANTIQUES. There are 106 full-color 2-3/8 x 2-15/16" photos, each with an identifying caption, plus short articles on the different types of dolls: French fashion dolls, Parian dolls, Papier Mache dolls, Composition dolls, Wax dolls, China dolls, Bisque dolls, Speciality dolls, Geographic dolls, and Wooden dolls. All of the dolls illustrated are from the private collection of Doris Hupp. In addition, the magazine contains a 1-1/8 page article, THE BUSY, HAPPY LIFE OF A DOLL COLLECTOR by Hilda Cole Espy which contains four b/w photos.. VG .‎
Bookseller reference : 31516
Antiqbook
Velma Clinton Books
namus
[Books from Velma Clinton Books]
€11.47 Buy
‎dolls‎
‎WOMAN'S DAY DICTIONARY OF DOLLS‎
‎NY 1965. Illustrated article 12pp. of dolls from the private collection of Doris Hupp included in an issue of Woman's Day. Whole issue has several articles photo illustrations advertisements. 4to. illustrated wraps. VG light wear light soiling. paperback‎

See this link to Marelibri: A wonderful site and you can download the list!
http://www.marelibri.com/t/main/3311780-dolls/books/AUTHOR_AZ/1050;jsessionid=C07141879B19BEAED18BC06B8017A3F2?l=en&actionMethod=thesaurus%2FshowBooks.xhtml%3AsearchEngine.initSearch

Here is a link to a newsletter I get via email from American Girl. I love these dolls, and others have been inspired by them. The story of Pleasant Middleton is really an inspiration. Also, There is a book by R.C Lennon, Happyland, which parodies the story as a murder mystery. It has been serialized in Harpers, but I haven't found the book yet.
http://mail.aol.com/37572-111/aol-6/en-us/Lite/MsgRead.aspx?folder=NewMail&uid=29494261&seq=0&searchIn=none&searchQuery=&start=0&sort=received&sortDir=descending
Here also is another Creepy Doll Site from The Gothic Embrace:http://gothicembrace.blogspot.com/2012/08/creepy-doll-haunts.html
For an online bibliography of doll and craft magazines; here is
Something Under the Bed. somethingunderthebed.com

See below:
I did not sell this book for $50.00, and I thought I had asked for all my copies to come back from Amazon. I'm floored!!
A Bibliography of Doll and Toy Sources (Paperback)
by Ellen M. Tsagaris
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918studio releases Throne fiction debut: Her Kind
LECLAIRE, IOWA — March 18, 2013 — 918studio announced today the release of a debut novel from author, professor, and small press publisher, Robin Throne. Her Kind, a novel was inspired by Anne Sexton's famous poem of the same name, and is an epistolary novel of an unassuming matriarch who chronicles a family migration from England to the new England to Iowa, and the settlement of the lost river village of Parkhurst (now part of historic Le Claire).
Throne was also named the recipient of the fourth David R. Collins' Literary Achievement Award March 16 at the Midwest Writing Center's Literary Banquet at the Outing Club in Davenport. Past recipients have included notable local authors, Sean Leary, Michael McCarty, and Connie Corcoran Wilson.
Her Kind, a novel is available for purchase at the Midwest Writing Center, Artswork in Le Claire, The Book Rack in Davenport and Moline, Book World in Southpark Mall, and Prairie Lights in Iowa City. The Kindle version is available from Amazon.com.
Past releases from 918studio have included Nancy Ann Schaefer's In Search of Lode (2012), The Legend of Tug Fest and other LeClaire Ghost Stories (2012), Jane VanVooren Rogers' How to avoid being and other paths to Triumph (2011), and Ellen Tsagaris' Sappho, I should have listened (2011).
For more about 918studio, visit
www.918studio.net

Sunday, March 17, 2013

It is the time of year I find most depressing, and now it is also bitterly cold.Last year, our forsythia was out, and the pussy willows, too.There used to be a crocus, and the jonquils and daffodils were about to bloom.We had violets by the first day of spring, too.

Not this year; we have had crazy snow showers, and malicious full moons, despite the wonder of the comet.It should be December, but other than a few stray lights, there are no decorations or bright glows to alleviate the darkness.Easter will be early this year, and the Easter dolls and statues are making an appearance.

There is not a lot of money for dolls this year, or for any hobby.The economy is bad for many.The last doll show I went to had prices slashed considerably.8 inch Nora Wellings dolls were only 12.00; I’ve never seen them less than $25.00.Artists dolls of bisque that sold originally over $100 were ten or fifteen dollars.A very old china head, at least 1870s, with original body and chemise, very worn, with a hairline was 35.00, and it did not sell.The doll was about 18 inches long.One of a kind resin babies of polymer clay were only 5.00.I bought an automaton by Dynasty from the 80s with a Jumeau style repro head for15.00; 25 years ago I saw her at an outlet mall for $125.00.

I find that 14 inch Alexanders with the box cost about $20.00.Some were valued by Patricia Smith and others in the 80s and 90s at over $400.It was also impossible to buy them in department stores.Even 8 inch dolls had to be reserved ahead for specially listed customers.Now, Tuesday Morning carries them as discount items.

I saw a brown French Fashion dressed as a Greek woman at nearly $6000, but this is the old price for these dolls, going back several years.Frozen Charlottes booked at 50-75.00 cost between 10-20.There also were not as many dealers at this show.

As usual, I found some things to bring home.I have found many things here and there lately that didn’t cost very much.Yesterday, I found beanie baby kids at a dime each where a local library hada white elephant sale.At the same sale, I found the Infamous Teen Talk Barbie in her original box withher Toys R Us sticker intact.This is the doll the toy terrorists sabotaged.She said “math is hard” among other thingsThe terrorists switched her voice box with a talking GI Joe. Henow said the “girlie” things about math and other subjects, she talked commando lingo.I write about both of them in my book on metal dolls, With Love from Tin Lizzie.

While antique shows can be expensive, I still find some deals.At the most recent, I found a doll on a wire hoop skirt base, intended to be a lamp.She is a china head, with extended arms and a china bust with a bosom.Her hair is gray.She is circa 1920-30, and usually is found on candy boxes.I refer you to Frieda Marion or any other good source on half dolls.She wears an improvised red silk paisley scarf, vintage, as a gown.She has a small hairline at the base and a chipped finger, but was only 35.00. I’ve seen her on other utensils for ten times that much.I found a Frozen Charlotte dressed as a chimney sweep from my friend Dick at our local antique show.His outfit is all crochet.At the same show I bought a one-inch Peter Horne wooden doll, all jointed.

Recently, though I didn’t buy them, I saw Raggedy Anns made by the Sherman Smith doll club, with one of his wooden dolls designed as a local on the dolls’ bodies.An intriguing idea, to be sure, if you want to be an unusual doll maker.

Cabbage Patch Kids are showing themselves at thrift stores, and I found one for .88 cents at Goodwill.It’s worth looking.At an upscale Chicago store for GW, I found the 2 foot long Tonka toy fire engine for only 1.99.It works. As the new chair of our Fire Science major, I feel I should collect related artifacts.Toy fire engines are a favorite, though I did have at least one very old one in my collection, as well as a few fire fighter dolls and 101 Dalmatians items.I found china head clowns for .20 cents each as well at the White Elephant Sale, and doll related ornaments for five cents each.

At the Dick Blick outlet a few weeks ago, I bought books on collage and assemblage that featured dolls worked into art, and discussed artists like Joseph Cornell and Hans Bellmer.At an earlier antique show in February, I found post cards featuring dolls, many over 100 years old, and international.There was one of Rose O’Neill sculpting Kewpies, and several of Käthe Kruse.There were also nice trade cards from Effanbee and Vogue,, and dolls featured from museums no longer open.I also found one Halloween card for my collection, since these are hard to find.

For those interested in restoration and doll costuming, don’t give up looking for dresses.I found vintage dresses and lingerie for $1.00 and less at doll shows, as well as vintage Italian (40 years old by Eros) and Greek, (the Evzon, or guard, composition, circa 1930s).I was able to dress several vintage sixties and fifties dolls in the correct outfits.

Yesterday, at our monthly down town indoor flea market, there were some free stuffed dolls and toys, and I chose two after I had bought some items.I find beads doll parts there occasionally for around .25.It is a bittersweet visit for me; one of the owners, our dear friend Frieda Quinlan, died unexpectedly after the Dec. 16th flea market.She was attending sales, as she loved to do, and took a box home with her.She tried on the stairs, fell, and suffered fatal injuries.She is gone much to soon for us, and she was someone with boundless energy who defined living live the fullest doing what you love.

Magazines at library sales are good sources for research.I bought some craft magazines from the 70s and 80s and a few Life mags, too.There were ads for dolls like The Jolly Green Giant and one for a Brigitte Deval doll that I had bought some time ago but could not identify.Also, there are articles about doll related stories, including a feature on Michael Landon, who starred/created Little House on the Prairie, dear to many doll collectors and children’s lit aficionados, one on Princess Diana, also immortalized in dolls, directions for making cloth dolls and toys, craft articles for miniatures, etc.

I also find vintage editions of Doll Reader, Doll Castle News, and Doll Talk, which are valuable sources of information for those who love to collect and to write.

Dolls are everywhere these days, and I saw my Morticia Addams HandPuppet on the wall of Ritchie’s room on The Dick Van Dyke Show, 1966.Dolls also show themselves on Kojak, The Twilight Zone, Dragnet, and Mash.

I learned yesterday of Pediophobia, a fear dolls and Automatonophobia, fear of Automatons.Really?I guess one can be afraid or have a phobia for anything.I’m not crazy about live mice, or rats, [‘But you love the meeces,!” says my Dad] only in cartoons, like Mickey Mouse.Technically, doll is Kukla or Kutsuna in Greek, and Pediophobia is a fear of children, literally, what whatever.Our friend Deb Baker calls it something else in her doll mystery series, excellent reads for both doll lovers and mystery buffs.I’m both.

To each his own.Or her own.Whatever.

I still agree with a quote I read about another doll museum that featured new and advertising dolls along with old ones.While old dolls are wonderful, and what I look for, I love the modern dolls.The owner stated that children came and loved seeing dolls and characters they recognized, and this delight might turn them into future collectors.

More later on collections of things I don’t collect.May March come in like a lamb and go out like a lamb for you.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I confess I am not Irish, though my cousins and husband are. In my heart, I love all things Irish and Celtic. My people, the Greeks, were close to the ancient Celts, a diverse group of humanity united by similarities of religion, language, and custom, and little else. Early on, they borrowed the Greek alphabet for their writing. Nora Chadwick and Jean Markale are noted authorities for those who want to read more. Stories of Boadicea and St. Patrick himself are covered in novels by Pauline Gedge and ark Godwin.
Irish dolls are usually vinyl or hard plastic and dressed in traditional dress, like the Connemara Woman. Some are built on wire armatures with clay heads realistically painted. There are cloth dolls with real Arran sweaters in miniatures, as well. Some are leprechauns, of course, and I have one of the clay heads discussed above and several charm dolls of silver. I have Irish dancers made of bisque, in Ireland, and dressed in traditional outfits. One angel laying a harp is dressed like Boadicea, who was strictly Iceni, not Irish, but the little brooch, cloak, and long read hair are just like her.
I also have figurines of Irish Dresden, one of Scarlet O’Hara, and Irish Belleek china and figurines.
There are many leprechauns made as dolls and stuffed animal made by novelty companies to be sold today, as well as miniatures mugs of Green to symbolize the famous green beer! There are also Santa dressed as leprechauns with rainbows and pots of gold at their feet.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Here are some bits and pieces, and links for fun stiff. The first is from Quilter's World; you can buy things, and you can subscribe to a free newsletter which is always great; http://www.anniescatalog.com/onlineclasses/?source=AOCNEWS
Next is from About.com Miniatures page, which contains links and free printables. I've papered many doll houses and shadow boxes with this. Featured, of course, are Shamrocks: http://mail.aol.com/37572-111/aol-6/en-us/Lite/MsgRead.aspx?folder=NewMail&uid=29492960&seq=1&searchIn=none&searchQuery=&start=0&sort=received&sortDir=descending
Next is Accuquilt Barn Quilt Design Contest: http://www.accuquilt.com/barnquilt.html?pla=Hero_Sale_Banner?RILT=Hero_Sale_Banner&utm_source=EB130314BQ&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=eblasts
Here is a survey from Tonner: Having trouble viewing this email?
Click here
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Victoria and Albert Shop; spring selections and info about the museum with its fantastic collections, including dolls;
Finally, from Theriaults: Saturday, March 23.
An Elan auction of wonderful private collection of antique dolls from French and German dollmakers including Jumeau, Steiner, Kammer and Reinhardt, and more, along with mignonettes, early Neopolitan, Schoenhut, American folk, vintage 50s, great composition dolls and all you hope for. This auction is available for absentee, telephone and online bidding, as well as attending the auction. The complete auction can be viewed online at www.theriaults.com. Preview 9 AM. Auction 11 AM.
Sunday, March 24.
I-Discover auction  youve known it before as Discovery Day  when hundreds of wonderful dolls are waiting for you to discover and call your own. Dolls in all categories, freshly unpacked from private estates, range from dandy characters in bisque, cloth and wood, to early china dolls, to lovely French dolls in need of your loving hand. The auction is available to attending bidders only. Preview 9 AM. Auction 11 AM.
Monday, March 25.
The famous Ten2Go auction where everything begins at $10 and everything goes. Youll find wonderful doll treasures (which is why some call it the best kept secret in the doll world) and some not so much. Over 400 lots in a few short hours, its wonderful fun, but not for the faint of heart! This auction is available for attending bidders only. Preview 9 AM. Auction 10 AM (note the earlier starting time).
For more information about the auction click here, visit www.theriaults.com, or call 800-638-0422 or email info@theriaults.com or stuart@theriaults.com.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

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We all have our own personal history shaped by the dolls that were popular in the childhoods of our generation, our mothers, and our grandmothers. Whether we continued as a doll connoisseur from Tin Lizzie to the first doll we purchased for our daughters, Dr. Tsagaris’ takes us back further to the first metal dolls and how these likenesses have reflected a culture, a civilization, and eventually a doll economy that determined which had value beyond our keeper of secrets. This is an academic text, a photo album, and book of memories all in one.
http://books.google.com/books?id=EUeVZwEACAAJ&sitesec=reviews&rf=ns:5
Thanks so much! We are indeed thrilled!!!!

Monday, March 4, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kQQcc0_SZM YouTube Link for Dolls Festival.
Here is some more information about the Hina Matsuri and the Girls Festival:
March 3 is known as hina matsuri (hina doll festival) or momo-no-sekku (peach flower festival) in Japan. Although it isn't a national holiday, it's an important celebration for girls, wishing their happiness and healthy growth.
It's said that hina matsuri's origin dates back to ancient Chinese purification rituals for getting rid of bad lucks. During the Heian period in Japan, people let straw or paper dolls float down the river or the ocean as their substitutes which take bad lucks away from them. This tradition remains today in some regions in Japan as nagashi-bina (floating hina dolls). It's said that the purification ritual was unified with aristocratic girls' playing with dolls and hina matsuri was established during Edo Period.
It's common for families of girls in Japan to have a set of hina dolls wearing ancient kimono and to display them at home beginning in early or mid February through March 3. The Empress doll and the Emperor doll are set on the top shelf. Then, sannin-kanjo dolls (three court women), gonin bayashi dolls (five court musicians), and more dolls are displayed on the shelves below. Hina-arare rice crackers and hishi-mochi cakes are commonly placed in the display. Many different types of hina dolls have been created around Japan. In some regions, hina dolls are hung from the ceiling called tsurushi-bina.
http://gojapan.about.com/cs/japanesefestivals/a/japanesegirlday.htm

Yesterday was the Girls Festival in Japan, also known as The Doll Festival. We receive an ad from a Japanese Grocery Store each week, and this week's ad featured sweets for the Doll Festival celebrations; culturally, this is a holiday apparently alive and well among Japanese Families. For information on the Hina Matsuri and other dolls, I recommend The Yokohama Doll Museum site, and works by Scot Alan Pate and Lea Baten. Pat Smith also wrote a book on Asian Dolls, and Judy Shoaf has a great website. If you have not read Rumer Godden's Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and Little Plum about the Festival and the lives of three Japanese dolls, you must. Godden actually had the Japanese doll house built and landscape in inspire her. She also had another antique doll house, featured in other books.

Here are some photos of Tasha Tudor's dolls, one of the most beloved authors/collectors of all time. Apparently, doll news has posted a story about her, and her appearances in books by Eleanor St. George. I was fortunate enough to write to her, and to her friend Rumer Godden [A Dolls House, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, Home is the Sailor, etc., and to receive responses from both of them:
Doll News, the Winter 2013 issue, was published a month ago. "The Dolls' Christmas" by Margaret Kincaid appears on pages 68-74. Kinkaid briefly describes the Tudor family: "Tasha Tudor, my father's cousin." She used Tasha Tudor's 1950 book as a starting point, Kincaid describes building for herself and her daughter their own version of the doll house pictured in The Dolls' Christmas. She erroneously indicates that Tasha's dollhouse wasn't as large as pictured in the book, and that it was only realized in that size by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1996. This is not correct; CWF built a replica of Tudor's Vermont dollhouse because the real one was too large to remove from Corgi Cottage. She also misquotes the names of her second cousins as Laura and Efner because Tudor used those names in her book. Tasha's daughters are Bethany and Efner.
The article is a fascinating one about building and equipping a large doll house. There are 17 illustrations in color. Doll News is the official organ of the United Federation of Doll Clubs. UFDC.org
DOLLS DOLLS DOLLS
We started reviewing Tasha Tudor's books chronologically with Pumpkin Moonshine (1938) and last month reached First Prayers published in 1952. Today's topic is Tasha Tudor's Old-Fashioned Dolls, not a book, but rather a set of postal cards published early in 1953.
Dolls were on Tasha Tudor's mind at the middle of the 20th century. She grew up with very personal and special dolls - family heirlooms. They were still of paramount importance to her as her own two daughters were growing up. She brought these worlds together - two dolls, two daughters - in The Dolls' Christmas (1950).
Tasha Tudor and her antique fashion doll Sethany Ann had already been included in Eleanor St. George's The Dolls of Yesterday (1948), pp. 82-83. Although it is a short discussion in a larger book, it did publicize Tasha's doll. She was suddenly introduced to a larger doll reading audience. Five years later St. George's Dolls of Three Centuries again mentioned Tasha Tudor's choice dolls. By then Tudor's talents had expanded. The Dolls' Christmas has been published, and Tudor has made her own doll Ethan Shakespeare as a mate for her Sethany Ann.
Much later there was published Tasha Tudor's Dollhouse by Harry Davis, describing one house that Tudor's doll family occupied. But we'll get to that book as a separate discussion in due time.
TASHA TUDOR'S OLD-FASHIONED DOLLS
Which brings us to the 13 photo postal cards featuring Tasha's dolls (the Shakespeare family) in various tableaux. The idea seems to have taken a while to germinate in the minds of Tudor and her husband Tom McCready. We have seen early versions of these postal cards as real photographs on heavy stock without any description. A next version reproduced the first ten photographs as a numbered set on glossy paper uniformly labeled Photo Paper, and now with title legends. The final form of the cards were black and white lithographed postal cards, with legends, ready for mailing.
The cards were available for sale as a set in a paper wrapper entitled Tasha Tudor's Dolls. But each of the cards is imprinted with the longer title Tasha Tudor's Old-Fashioned Dolls. See item T108 in Tasha Tudor: The Direction of Her Dreams. The wrapper carries a picture on the front of Violet mailing a letter by the Sparrow Post. The history of the dolls in the McCready household unfolds with tales of sewing clubs, literary circles and managing a general store.
The folder also carries this text describing each scene.
1. This is Violet Shakespeare mailing a letter by Sparrow Post to her Aunt Nicey Melinda. The Post Office is in her father's store, Shakespeare & Lovelace.
2. Here Nicey and Mrs. Shakespeare do the family washing and ironing. Babby, the maid, is apparently on vacation.
3. Mrs. Shakespeare and Nicey get ready for a trip to Saratoga. They are wondering how they are going to fit in their ball dresses.
4. The Shakespeares are enjoying tea. Violet is about to get a cup for herself while Rosebud sits in Nicey's lap. The Captain has just come back on leave. He is a Captain in the New Hampshire volunteers.
5. Nicey is making pies for her brother, the Captain's, return. His two daughters and the pussy, whose name is Puddings, look on.
6. This is Shakespeare & Lovelace Store. The Captain is waiting on his wife who has come to buy some apples. Violet is talking with her friend, Henrietta Asquith.
7. Nicey is giving Rosebud and Violet their Saturday night bath. Violet is urging Rosebud not to take so long as they wish Papa to read them a long story.
8. Nicey gives Henrietta Asquith a music lesson while Violet waits her turn. Violet plays the zither however.
9. The Captain and his wife and sister have a quiet dinner party all to themselves.
10. Mrs. Shakespeare cooks cranberry sauce while Nicey chops apples for the mince pies. It must be Thanksgiving.
Soon after the initial publication three other cards were published on Christmas themes: Christmas Angel, The Christmas Party: Opening Presents and The Nativity.
We have not discovered who the photographer was. We do know that Mrs. Bradley of Henniker, NH, was a photographer acquainted with the McCready family. We've seen two photographs she made of Thomas and Tasha McCready at their home in the early 1950s.
Nell Dorr was a well-known photographer who was a close friend of Tasha Tudor. But her work is well documented and credited, whereas this series of photographs never names the photographer. So they are probably not Dorr's work. Our money is on Bradley. The text is most likely the work of Thomas L. McCready, Jr. He handled much of the family correspondence. And in a couple more years, he will be writing books of his own about their farm life.
The printed brochure indicates these ten cards are the first series. There will be more. There were only three more un-numbered cards, each showing the dolls in Christmas tableau.
All these cards are discussed in Christmas Card Designs of Tasha Tudor, pp. 67-68. They are illustrated on pages 265-266.
MARCH SPECIAL
Afternoon Tea Print
Since we're talking about dolls this month, we have a doll special for you. We have copies of the Jenny Wren Press print "Afternoon Tea." It features 3 children at tea with their dolls and teddy bears and 2 hungry corgis. The girl on the right looks like Sara Johnson who posed for illustrations in The Real Pretend. The print (item 18231 on our website) is normally $20.00. You can buy one during the month of March for half that price, or $10. 3 or more - $8.00 each - no limit.
For an extra treat we still have a few of these prints signed by Tasha Tudor for her Indiana company in 1992. (That was 21 years ago !) These signed copies are $60 each and not on sale (18196). Order now; they won't last forever. Shipping at the usual rate, and these prints will be shipped flat.
Our general White Sale continues through the end of March. Visit our web site today to review the various discounts and special prices on merchandise.